Territory

World Premiere

Programme Note

In 1976 Leonard Bernstein and Alan Jay Lerner collaborated on their musical 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, which was written for the Bicentennial of the United States. The show closed after just seven performances in New York. In 1990 the Bernstein and Lerner Estates decided to liberate the witty lyrics and charming music from the burdensome book. Scored for six soloists, chorus, and orchestra, A White House Cantata retains 90 minutes of music from the two-hour show; it includes barbershop harmonies, calypso, marches, jazz, blues, drinking songs, Dixieland, minstrel-show tunes, torch songs, waltzes, and hymns.